The storm is eavesdropping on my father’s house,
my heart beats out into the night,
loudly; thus from the storm’s roaring
in the forest I awoke already as a child.
My young son, listen, listen:
in your distant cradle-rest
the wind moans my words to you in your dreams.

Once I too laughed in my sleep,
my son, and was not awakened
by the storm; until a grey night
came, like today.
Dully the föhn-wind surges in the forest today
as it did back then, when I heard its sound
in fear, as I heard the words of my father.

Listen to how the margin of the budding treetops
baulks, bends, from tree to tree;
my son, into your cradle-rest
the storm laughs ragingly -- listen, listen!
It has never bowed down in fear!
hear, how it wheezes through the treetops:
be you! be you! --

And when at some point, my son,
your old father speaks to you of filial duty,
do not obey him, do not obey him:
Hear how the föhn-wind brews up the spring in the forest!
Hear how it eavesdrops on my father’s house,
my heart beats out into the night,
loudly -- --